Rasp
by R.Lisa
Summary: Isn’t it hard enough to always have an eye watching your back from things that only should live in nightmares and horror tales that when man becomes your ultimate enemy you begin to question just who is the greatest monster. AU, full summary inside.


**RASP **

**(working title for the time being)**

**Summary: Isn't it hard enough to always have an eye watching your back from things that only should live in nightmares and horror tales that when man becomes your ultimate enemy you begin to question just who is the greatest monster. Follow a rag, tag family of survivors as they struggle to survive in a hellish, ravaged wasteland as they begin to unravel the mystery behind the fall of humanity. AU, with some borrowed scenes twisted to fit in and work with the fiction, but very little of them.**

**Disclaimers**: _Mai Hime/Mai Otome are owned and copyrighted to Sunrise and the respective creators. This work of fanfiction is made out for entertainment and was not made for any type of profit._

_**A.N.: **__ This is the first time I am dipping my hand and trying to write a fanfiction as well as actually posting anything of mine online. Usually, I keep to writing original shorts for my own amusement and sanity. This story was made out to be of a horror/action type of piece so there will be times when the gory details might be a bit graphic and I am not sure how graphic I will be getting. So be forewarned because I will not be putting any type of warning in the preceding chapters. There will be romance between the many different couples, but I may or may not succeed in not having those scenes look like they were forced and I apologize in advance as romance genre is not my forte. And if any reader is expecting any type of sex scenes in the future chapters, don't hold your breath, if I struggle writing romance scenes then it definitely means I will fail miserably at those, so no, it will only be implied. Even if that. Lastly, please don't steal or post anywhere else without asking. I know it gains no profit, but it is common courtesy to simply ask even if it is a horrible work of fiction._

_**Notes: **__I have based the characterization of each character primarily from their respective series and not the dubbed version, and from their background that I have been able to research and understand. Creative critisism and helpful tips will be greatly appreciative as I'm a computer science nerd first and foremost with a dangerous, creative streak. All spelling and grammar mistakes are my own as I don't have my own editor to edit my work. P _

_**Updates will be random as my work and college come first.**_

_**Rated M for Mature. So, those that are younger than seventeen please be advised some scenes within the story will be disturbing.**_

_**Prologue **_

Heavy rasps of breath escape the young woman's mouth as she bends over hands on knees trying to get her chest to stop heaving so heavily. Spitting at the ground, she straightens up wiping away the left over saliva with the back of her right, gloved hand. Muttering softly to herself, she brings the messenger bag around to her front letting the strap run across her back. Opening the flap all the way, she begins to take inventory of all the items that lay inside of it. With a grin spreading across her mouth and a small whispered victory shout she flips the flap close. This time securing it with the three buckles and the side locks. The items secured within the bag and in no danger of falling out she swings the bag towards her back as she makes her way towards the edge of the rooftop she jumped to from the taller building eleven feet away. Her knees still throbbed in pain from the impact she had forced upon them when she did the emergency running jump without preparation. Letting the tips of her converse sneakers rest against the edge of the roof, she looks down watching decayed bodies drag themselves about in confusion, able to smell her but unable to pinpoint her location and two undistinguishable smears of gore on the floor directly below the space of the buildings.

They were going to have to come back at morning and clear out the area once more.

This was going to be a pain tomorrow.

Bending her knees a little as she made her way to the other side of the roof she lets the pain subside a little before slowly jogging towards the ladder leading the way down to a metal platform twelve rungs down. Pulling and flexing her gloves, insuring that they were secure, she runs faster grabbing the left leg with her right hand swinging herself around to the other side of the ladder facing the wall letting her other hand secure the other leg once the swing is complete. She doesn't bother with the rungs as she lets herself slide down the ladder using her gloved hands as friction control to slow or speed up her way down.

Letting go of the ladder on the last three rungs she lands in a crouch and staying like that for a few seconds more as she curses softly under her breath as pain transforms into very sharp needles and daggers knifing into her leg muscles. Yes, there were times she could definitely be stupid. Muttering some more curses to herself in a soft tone, she slowly stands up shaking her legs one at a time trying to get a normal, less painful feel to them.

Once standing is a less painful experience than the landing, she takes register of her surroundings slowly becoming aware of a low, shuffling noise two floors below her. A low death, rattling moan could be heard in the air, chilling her to the very bones. The foul odor of the deceased reaching, faintly, to her sensitive nose which wrinkles in disgust as the smell invades it.

"_**Graa**__**aaa**__**hhhh**__**…"**_

Bending her head forward slightly, she is greeted with a grotesque sight of pale, dead flesh with clumps of hair matted onto the head form progressing to a snail's pace towards the stairs leading up to her. There was a floor between her and it, but on that floor dragging itself by its lone, vermin ravished arm and hand, lay another of those horrifying creatures with half its body missing just above the waist. Part of the spine stuck out with chunks of putrid muscle clinging to it, still wearing a sullied, blood splattered decomposing shirt, filthy beyond reason. She let goosebumps play atop of her skin as she started from the sight, not that it was unusual to come across such scenes when coming out to the ravaged wasteland.

What she wouldn't give to erase those things from existence.

Making her way over to the dangling rope that connected the place she was at to the other six story building's fire escape she flexed her fingers once more, tensing her arm muscle getting them ready for the journey across. Gripping the rope in her hands, she raises her legs to cross over the rope and begins to do an upside down pull heading to the next building that lay a good twenty-three feet in distance. Thanking herself for remembering to wear the durable, camouflage pants the military issued, she checks the time on the watch strapped to her right wrist noting that she had under an hour to get to safety before being caught by dusk's descend and far worse nightmarish creatures.

A final grunt and the puller arrives at her destination after a ten minute non-stop work to get there. She unwraps her legs from the rope then her hands before sliding down along the brick wall boneless as she once more finds herself in a bout of heaving breathing.

She was safe here.

They had dismantled the fire escape until only the platform and the ladder leading to the building's roof remained. Unless those things grew wings or sharp claws to vertically climb the walls, it was impossible for them to get where she was. After crossing this building and one more rooftop to jump to, she would be home in less time than she expected.

The mission had been simple, a code white.

Simply to restock their dwindling supplies at their home base with just the normal stuff of medical first aid supplies, food and useful surviving gear like ammo for guns or knives. Three of them had volunteered to go in a team. They already knew the exact places they could get in and out with the least amount of danger. Getting weapons and food had been easy since they had secured the building from the inside out to prevent any sort of invasion to occur several months ago, but always doing sweeps to insure that it would still be safe to enter as the only access point was through the rooftops.

It was when they had arrived at the hospital after evading several crowds of the no longer living population that the trouble had started. They had become quite lax in their precaution that they had failed to see the secured doors of the emergency exit had been tampered and opened. Ready to go home and live for another day, they had entered the hospital and made straightway to the supply room located several rooms deep from the exit. Entering the lit stock room, she was the one in charge of picking out the medical supplies knowing what was needed to stack up on their stash. The other two stood outside the door acting as the lookouts, but it was more like they were merely joking around and not paying attention. She was almost done as she was carefully securing a glass bottle of morphine when the alarmed shouts of her comrades drew her attention to the double door entrance. Only to have a hand shoot out of the middle of the doors and grab the front of her shirt, pulling her out of the room and into the hallway infested with the very nightmarish creatures they had been dodging the entire day long.

Without a second thought, she shoves the glass bottle into her bag and pushes her companions in the direction of the exit as they begin to scramble away from the horde. She screams for them to separate the moment they get out and make way to home insuring that if this many were inside who knew how many were lingering about the premises. The other two agreed with sharp hand movements already coming to the conclusion that a survivor had lead the things here as they tried to escape and probably already lay dead somewhere half eaten and half rotting unless they were also turned. Those were not very happy thoughts for the group.

Not caring to be discreet, the double doors of the emergency exit slam into the outside walls creating a reverberating, echoed sound wave carrying through the not so empty streets.

Shit.

They were going to die here.

Waiting for them, clustered severely together, were a crowd of slow, moving hungry for flesh undead. The only blessing was the fact that it was the slow, stupid ones they were facing. They ran straight towards them before making a sharp turn to the right two feet away from them letting the crowd trip over themselves in haste for a chance to grab them. It was a dangerous move, but one very few of the scavengers could do save for them. She could feel the decaying hands trying to find a hold on her hair and clothes she hastened her steps to match the other two's.

As they near the street's first four way intersection, they sprint in three directions. One to the left and the other to the right while she keeps going straight already creating the safest route she can take to make it to a rooftop and away from the contaminated streets. After a long, grueling jog and several run-ins, she spotted a familiar building with an easy access to outside stairs that curve around a five foot diameter column that lead to the different floors' balconies and roof.

The building was once a celebrity housing condominium with gates surrounding the grounds and property with outside access to their balconies located conveniently a few feet from an Olympic sized pool. But that was years ago, now the pool lay abandon with corpses resting at the bottom and the rustic gates long since pulled down to the cemented street from when the fear had broken out in the public and riots had over taken the city. What was so great was the fact that they had long ago connected the column's top base to an office building's fire escape route using a system of several ropes and pulleys that came right out of a mountain climbing book. It had taken nearly a year and a half to perfect and finish as the distance between the buildings and the height was large in differences. The buildings' distance across from each other was nearly a hundred and seven feet not to mention that one building was a four story complex and the other a nine floor business building. They used the system quite regularly as well as maintained it to insure that it would always be reliable, for times like this one. Hooking herself up to one of the waist harnesses within seconds she begins to cross herself by pulling on one of the taut lines that will take her to the other side. After arriving at her destination, she made her way up the ladder and unto the solid ground figuring out that now she would have to start running and jumping to the other rooftops to make it home before dark.

She had been on her last leg of the journey already tired when two Runners had surprised her from her sides as she begun to jog slowly towards the other edge having landed without mishap or injury. They had probably gotten stuck there from their last hunt unable to understand how to turn a knob to open a door and laid in wait for prey to fall into their hands. With a grunt and adrenaline rush, she had increased her speed sending her into a running jump across the eleven foot chasm between the structures.

She had been completely unprepared for the landing as her feet made contact with the ground at the same time, her knees reeling and rattling from the huge amount of shock they had to absorb. The forward motion had not stopped and forced her to take pain, stumbling steps to get rid of it as she tried to maintain her upright position. She heard a double, sickening splat from the ground as the Runners had tried the same maneuver, but they had lacked what she had.

Running a tired hand through her sweat, matted hair she pushes herself up from the lone platform, making important notes in her mind to never leave home without her guns and knives or to ever listen to any of the advices being said from the other equally stupid hunters. Climbing the ladder, she's surprised by a scouting group of her friends looking ready to head out in some type of search, her two missing companions part of it. One of the other scouts spots her peeking over the edge and lets out a shout of joy.

Soon, she's being pulled up by several pairs of hands eager to help. Hugs and physical contact start to assault her already exhausted body, her vision already blackening around the edges, but there is one member of their large, crazy, unrelated family she had to see before completely passing out. She wanted to boast that just as she had promised she came back uninjured and well with all the items intact and safe.

Warmth surrounds her from behind as two arms encircle her waist and pull her into a deep, gentle embrace. Her face turns slightly towards the back of her as she meets the person's eyes a smirk already playing on her lips as she utters two simple words, promptly passing out in the all too familiar embrace.

"Told you."

_**A.N.**__ ending notes: The A.N. notes won't be as long or even be there in the following chapters_. _I would rather get everything out of the way at the beginning. Yes, I purposely didn't describe or name the characters as I wanted the readers to feel similar to what a reader feels opening the first page of a brand new story. Intrigue and curiosity while being pulled slowly to the story or plot. I hope I at least partial succeeded in that area. Thank you for taking the time to read this work of nonsense that my mind decided to challenge me with. Later chapters will begin to explain what Runners are as well as what type of world they live in._


End file.
